


Hit the Boards

by ClockworkCourier



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexuality, Body Paint, Body Worship, Burlesque, Canon Era, Coming of Age, F/F, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Frottage, Handcuffs, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Misunderstandings, Multi, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Original Character(s), Polyamory, Romance, Rope Bondage, Slow Burn, Terminal Illnesses, vaudeville
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 07:03:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16887867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier/pseuds/ClockworkCourier
Summary: At eleven years old, Arthur Morgan is picked up by the father of Aldridge T. Abbington, rather than Dutch van der Linde. He's raised in a vaudeville circuit, and aside from some inconsequential brushes with unsavory people, he hardly has to deal with outlaws at all.Many things are different, but some things don't change at all.





	Hit the Boards

**Author's Note:**

> heyyy this is the vaudeville AU that absolutely no one asked for? like, i was even working on a completely different fic when, in game, i finally sat through one of the vaudeville performances in saint denis. lightbulb, aha moment, etc. and i decided this would be pretty fun to work on in the interim.
> 
> i thought it would be interesting to play with the possibilities of what life would be like for a lot of rdr2 characters if arthur's upbringing had been totally different. like 99% of this is headcanon, especially in regards to the theatre raleur people. my big disclaimer here is that i've only researched vaudeville, but i've never dealt with it or in a whole lot of performance art before. so, big big BIG apologies if i get something glaringly wrong. my research is still ongoing, and mostly i'm doing this for entertainment (i.e. a nice way to say 'procrastination'). i admit i'm taking a lot of liberties here.

_September, 1897  
  
_It’s a good crowd tonight. Aldridge has already peered out from the wings, invisible to the audience, and counted the house. He makes a humming sound of satisfaction in his throat and adjusts the tails of his coat out of habit, like he’s straightening out an invisible wrinkle. “ _Darn_ good,” he says. He glances over his shoulder, at the the flurry of activity of stagehands and performers making last minute adjustments. “Arthur, come have a look!”  
  
Arthur walks up with a sigh, minding that the lasso at his hip is still tied in place and has no risk of tripping someone. He weaves around Hortense and Maude and Lottie (“ _Salut!_ ” she says breathlessly, chasing after that little Bichon Frise of hers which is currently making a beeline for the refreshment table) before wedging himself between Aldridge and the asbestos curtain.  
  
He has to tilt his head at a harsh angle to peer around the edge of Aldridge’s ridiculous top hat. Beyond the glare of the stage lights, he can see that nearly every chair in the house is full. People are smiling and laughing, sipping at cocktails, adjusting gloves and hats, and—  
  
Arthur’s mouth goes dry.  
  
“Oh, Jesus,” he says.  
  
Aldridge turns to look at him, and Arthur minds the brim of his hat like a saw blade. “What? What’s wrong?”  
  
He doesn’t reply right away, his eyes fixed on row C, seats five and six. There, he sees the man and woman from four years ago, seated side by side, her right hand resting on his arm while he whispers something into her ear. They look exactly like how he remembers, albeit a bit more fancied up. His heart does an acrobatic flip in his chest, and his stomach, for the first time in almost a decade, knots up in anxiety.  
  
He’s dimly aware that Aldridge is staring at him, getting more worried with each second. Eventually, Arthur just replies with a quiet, stifled, “That’s a big crowd.”  
  
There’s a beat, like the one that comes before a punchline, before any tension in Aldridge seems to flow right out of him. He barks a laugh and swings an arm around Arthur’s shoulders. “Morgan, I can’t recall the last time you got stage fright.”  
  
He might say something else, some joke at Arthur’s expense; but Arthur doesn’t hear a word. His heart is drumming in his head, deafening him to any other noise. All he can see is the couple, bordered with moonlight-soft stage glare like a pair of angels.

* * *

  
_August, 1874_  
  
Lyle Morgan slinks out of Arthur’s view like an injured horse, meant to be taken out back for a merciful end. All Arthur sees is the back of his head, still shining with pomade from an attempt to look good at the trial. Lyle’s hat is too big for Arthur’s head, and he has to keep pushing the brim out of his eyes while he watches his father disappear into the cart, so bolted up and reinforced that it makes it seem like Lyle’s shot up half the county rather than stealing from a few houses with unlocked doors.  
  
Arthur’s dimly aware of the world around him, narrowed as it is on that tiny point. He knows that the hot wind is kicking up dust outside of the courthouse, and he can feel someone’s hand on his shoulder. Quietly, someone calls him _son_ , even though Lyle himself never called him that. It was always _boy_.  
  
Even at the end; _boy, don’t you go and be stupid_.  
  
They ask him if he has anywhere to go, and Arthur hears himself say, “I suppose,” in a thin, strangled voice.  
  
He hears an offer. They have places for children like him. Nice, comfortable buildings with smiling matrons who feed them and clothe them and teach them their letters and the like. He knows this, because he knows what they really are. Lyle’s threatened him with one enough times. _Send you off to one of them homes,_ he would say, in a voice that wasn’t quite the accent he’d immigrated with, wasn’t quite a drawl.  _They’d give you somethin’ to really cry about._  
  
“No,” Arthur replies softly. The brim of the hat sinks down again, and the cart disappears with the rest of the horizon. “I’ll be alright.”  
  
He won’t. He’s eleven years old, his mother’s grave at his back, his father’s inevitable hanging at his front, and surrounding him on all sides is a world that doesn’t want him. He’s the son of a criminal, an orphan for all it’s worth, and he can draw, though he can't read or write. And drawing won't make a lick of difference to anyone who sees him as something worth feeding and sheltering.   
  
At some point, he picks a direction and starts walking. If other people try to talk to him, he doesn’t hear them.  
  
He can’t go home, because the bank came for the Morgan cabin that morning. They took the horses, the chickens, the damn _coop_ that Arthur spent half a summer at age nine learning how to fix. He’d only been able to grab his satchel, a few photographs, a journal, and a piece of graphite that Lyle had given him in a rare moment of parental generosity.  
  
He doesn’t know if he would _want_ to go back, even if he was able to.  
  
So, he walks. He walks from when the sun's propped up on the dome of the sky at noon, until it rolls down to the horizon and paints it the prettiest shade of red Arthur’s ever seen. He walks after it slips beneath the shadows of the mountains, and the sky goes blue and purple and black like a bruise. He walks along the road, unspooling like a silver ribbon in the moonlight, cutting through gray-black feathers of sagebrush. He walks when the coyotes yip and howl, and the crickets scrape out a symphony in the bushes.  
  
He walks until his feet are blistered and bleeding in his boots, and even then, he keeps going.  
  
He’ll walk until he’s dead, he thinks. Someone might find him later, probably following the natural scavengers that will pick him apart and carry him to the four corners until he’s stretched across the whole land. They’ll think it’s unfortunate, and then they’ll search his satchel for anything of value. Someone will take the satchel, too. Eventually, he’ll just become part of the landscape, his bones as white as the dunes. Dust, then, to be kicked up on boots and horse hooves. Then, nothing at all.  
  
At some point, he hears the clatter of a wagon, and some exhausted part of his mind wonders if it’s someone coming for him. Someone’s figured that if he’s the son of a criminal, that he might as well be one himself. He pauses, feeling the hot rush of pain coming in like a tide in his boots, and turns to look behind him.  
  
The wagon isn’t too far away, and Arthur can make out the two little lanterns on its front flickering merrily in the darkness. The wagon itself is large, roofed, and painted a dark color that’s impossible to discern in the night. He sees that it’s pulled by two enormous white draft horses, bobbing their heads and huffing. For a long while, he doesn’t move, too entranced by the dancing lights and the horses’ heads going up and down like boats on the waves.  
  
Then, he hears someone shouting.  
  
“Hey! _Hey!_ ”  
  
By the time the wagon has caught up to Arthur, the driver is pulling back hard on the reigns, causing the horses to rear their heads up and whinny in irritation. Their massive hooves dance in place while the wagon clatters to a stop. “ _Woah!_ ” the driver bellows. “Easy, boys! Easy!”  
  
There’s a long pause where the driver, a man in a black derby hat and a massive handlebar mustache, stares at Arthur like he can’t reason out if what he’s seeing is a dream or not. Arthur’s inclined to feel the same, unsure if he might actually be dead and this gentleman is coming for his soul like Death driving a pair of Pale Horses.  
  
“Huh,” says the driver, and it sounds like a conclusion. “You lost, son?”  
  
Arthur blinks slowly, and then shakes his head. He doesn’t think he’s lost if he didn’t know where he was going to begin with.  
  
“Where’re ya headed?”  
  
He looks down the road, like the answer will be there somewhere. Then, he shrugs. “Nowhere, I guess.”  
  
The driver is silent for a moment before he tuts. “Nowhere? You’re just out wanderin’ around by your lonesome?”  
  
Arthur nods. It’s as good of an answer as any.  
  
“Jesus,” he hears the driver mutter, but it sounds more like ‘ _jay-sus_ ’. Then, he perks up a bit on his seat as one of the horses whickers quietly. “How old are you, son?”  
  
“Eleven.”  
  
“Your ma or pa just let you walk around out here?”  
  
Arthur feels like he should bristle at that, or get upset, or _something._ Instead, he doesn’t feel much of anything, so he shrugs again. “Ma’s dead,” he replies, as casually as if he were saying how old he was again. “Pa got taken away this mornin’. They’re gonna hang him.”  
  
Another _jay-sus_ , but louder. The driver sounds like one of the O’Donnell boys that used to live down the road. He goes quiet again, but it’s what Arthur’s mother would have called ‘loud quiet’, like someone’s thinking so hard that the whole room can hear it.  
  
“Got a name?” he finally asks.  
  
At first, Arthur isn’t sure if he should answer at all, or if he should lie. Then, he thinks that it doesn’t matter what he tells the man. His name doesn’t mean anything now, and no one cares if he’s related to Lyle Morgan or Beatrice or some man in Cardiff that he’s never met. “Arthur Morgan,” he replies.  
  
The driver offers him a smile, but it’s just a flex of his mustache in the moonlight. “Alphonse T. Abbington, of the world famous Abbington Revue,” he says in introduction, tipping his derby hat. “On my way to Copperbell. You ever been to Copperbell, Mister Morgan?”  
  
Arthur shakes his head.  
  
“Fine little place. Up and coming mining town, and in dire need of entertainment,” Alphonse says, widely gesturing out at the night like Copperbell is just going to rise out of the sagebrush. “I’m off to go astonish and delight the good people of Copperbell. You want to come along? Don’t have to stay around. I can even pay for a train ticket if you’ve got a destination in mind.”  
  
The first thing Arthur thinks is that he doesn’t have a destination in mind, because he doesn’t know where he is or if there’s anywhere in the world that has a place for him. It’s an awfully weighty thought for an eleven year old to have, and yet, it’s the simplest thought in the world. _Then,_ he thinks that aside from his mother, hardly anyone has ever offered him a thing, let alone a train ticket.  
  
Finally, he thinks that he might as well take up Alphonse’s offer, because Arthur has nothing to lose, aside from the chance to die and rot and turn to dust in the scrublands.  
  
“Sure,” Arthur replies. He says it the way his father would say it.  
  
“Well, come on up here, then,” Alphonse says, sliding across the long seat at the head of the wagon and patting the space beside him.  
  
Arthur walks over to the wagon, close enough now to see the fine material of Alphonse’s coat in the lantern light. He steps onto the hub of the wheel, then vaults himself up into the seat. His feet and legs ache terribly, and his entire body weighs down on his bones. Even so, there’s a strange lightness in him, making him feel like he’s floating two feet above the wagon.  
  
Alphonse snaps the reins on the horses with a brightly, “Walk on, boys!” The pair of drafts start to slowly nod again, and then pick up speed until Arthur can feel the wagon begin to rock like a cradle from their rhythm. For the first time since he’s left, he starts to feel the weight of the day and its events fall upon him, and exhaustion fills up the space that the lightness left.  
  
When his head droops once, he hears Alphonse laugh quietly.  
  
“You can nod off for a bit, son. We got a ways to Copperbell. Be there before sunrise, I reckon.”  
  
Arthur doesn’t respond. The offer’s too good. Instead, he leans his head back against the front wall of the wagon, one of the lanterns flickering by his face. It only takes a minute or two to fall asleep, and blissfully, he dreams of nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)
> 
> [Vaudeville term glossary](http://marinaendicott.com/books/the-little-shadows/glossary/)  
> Note: 'hit the boards' refers to taking up a career in theater, because I am a very clever writer hur hur hur.
> 
> [The American Vaudeville Museum Archive](http://speccoll.library.arizona.edu/collections/vaudeville/collections/)


End file.
